Another angle to the OLPC debate: An interesting study made by Computers for Youth, a NGO tells why and under what conditions, digital teaching aids are effective for school kids. CFY provided home computers to sixth grade kids along with broadband connection with discounted tariffs. It also provided a web portal (Power My Learning) which gives interactive teaching sessions for the students. CFY found that there was an improvement in performance in kids education across competence levels: kids performing below average performed better and kids who were average improved to above average. One obvious observation was that both parents and teachers had to be given training in the new technology to help them guide the kids. The other interesting observation is that key thing that changed is the mindset of kids towards learning. Earlier the kids used to restrain themselves from pro-active participation in class to avoid the embarrassment of failure. But with interactive digital aids, failure become a motivation for retrying: just like kids who get hooked to video games, keep trying till they finish a level.
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